Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to business processes that include project management, project evaluation, marketing automation, customer relationship management, learning management, content management, and human resources.
Description of the Related Art
Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, managing, leading, evaluating and controlling resources to achieve specific goals. A project can be a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. Note, however, that the dictionary definition of “project” is: “an individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned and designed to achieve a particular aim.” In particular, some enterprises may not have a defined end point, and may continue indefinitely, even for as long as an organization lasts, or beyond (i.e. be taken up by successor organizations). As defined herein, the term “project” defines an enterprise or other organized behavior that may or may not have a defined end point. Thus “project management” software can encompass other types of organizational management, such as customer relationship management, marketing automation, organizational activity, and other types of workflow management software. Here, for simplicity, rather than using possibly confusing terms such as “project/workflow/activity management” these different types of organizational management software will often be referred to as project management software.
The primary challenge of project management (workflow management, activity management) is to achieve all of the project's goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived constraints. The primary constraints are scope, time, and budget. Other project management considerations, however, which ideally would also be considered, but which are typically not considered, includes transparency/visibility, quality, and creativity. Thus, in the example of FIG. 1, conventional project management software typically divides a project into a fixed set of tasks and assigns tasks to individual team members (e.g. employees), also known as task owners, to be completed according to a schedule.
Due to the complexities of project management, an extensive amount of prior art has been devoted to various methods of computerizing the process. Generally, project management is computerized through various types of project management software. Modern project management software, although it can be configured to run on just one computer, is generally configured to run on networked computers, often with the aid of one or more servers and various client devices. Examples of widely used prior art computerized project management systems include Microsoft project, and Microsoft Office Project server, Oracle Primavera EPPM, SAP Business ByDesign, HP Project & Portfolio Software, and the like.
Some of the functions performed by prior art project computerized management systems include scheduling, issue tracking, project portfolio management, resource management, document management, and reporting and analysis. Project management systems may also output project data in various formats, such as PERT and Gantt charts, and the like.
Conventional computerized project management approaches have many drawbacks. In particular, they often create work environments in which individuals narrowly focus on the task assigned to them based on the schedule and the budget. The work environment is often not mentally and emotionally stimulating for the task owners. Additionally, as previously discussed, conventional project management approaches do not emphasize transparency, quality, and creativity.
A further drawback of conventional computerized project management systems is that they are not integrated with learning management. In many modern work environments, employees must also be trained and educated to learn various skills and background knowledge. Conventional approaches to learning management, such as giving employees lectures or intensive one-day training, often result in poor knowledge retention.